


A Remedy for Agony

by Xen_Arthra



Category: Cosmere - Brandon Sanderson, Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Adolin is just a superb friend and I wanted him to have a chance to shine, Angst, Book 03: Oathbringer Spoilers, Book 04: Rhythm of War, Depression, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Spoilers Ahoy, Minor Allusion to Suicide, Quite Literally a Single Scene AU, RoW AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:41:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27897724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xen_Arthra/pseuds/Xen_Arthra
Summary: Sometimes we slip, and fail to quickly don our masks.Sometimes we break, and the people who love us pick up the pieces.Re-imagining of a portion of Chapter 12 in Rhythm of War, in which Kaladin doesn't pull things together before Adolin shows up. Failing to hide the pain can often be good thing, who'da thunk it?
Comments: 14
Kudos: 88





	A Remedy for Agony

Adolin had jumped when Sylphrena appeared in his bedroom, wide-eyed and distraught. A flurry of motion, she'd practically bounced from wall to wall before stopping inches from his face. 

“Kaladin’s alone, and I haven’t seen him like this in a long time. Adolin, hurry!”

That had been enough to spur him into a sprint through Urithiru, the little spren flitting about in his peripheral vision. Occasionally she spasmed with a pained, disoriented look to her features, whorls of ethereal blue dress churning in the air.

“Is he hurt?” panted Adolin as they ascended to the next level of the city.

“On the inside. The last time I saw him like this was…” She faltered, then darted ahead to the tunnel junction that lead to Kaladin’s room.

“Syl, finish the thought, help me out here.”

She turned to him mid-air, and he could swear that she was shaking. A tiny sliver of Honor, vibrating in fear. “The last time I saw him like this was when he went to the Honor Chasm.”

After spending time with Skar, Drehy, and the rest of Bridge Four, Adolin had heard a fair amount of stories about life in Sadeas’ warcamp. Enough to know exactly what that meant. His friend was an island most of the the time, content to hold people at arm's length, but his moods were easy to spot when one was used to them. The darkness, the far-off gaze, the depths he'd flounder in behind closed doors. That could have easily driven him to that cliff's edge all those months ago. If Syl was in this state now...

Adolin hurtled down the remaining two hallways and found himself pounding on Kaladin’s door. 

_Come on, bridgeboy, open up._

He tried the door, preparing to kick it in if he needed to. Mercifully, it was unlocked. 

Agonyspren clustered around Kaladin, like cremlings gorging themselves on a carcass. Thrashing brown jets of exhaustionspren danced between the unfeeling stone faces. Stillness reigned in the dim room, eroded only by the slumped figure's broken breaths. Almighty, the despair was palpable. That made Adolin’s heart hammer even harder. 

He took a step forward, then hesitated. “I didn’t mean to barge in like this, bridgeboy.” _Yes I_ did _, damn it._ “But Syl said you might not want to be alone tonight.” _I am_ not _leaving you alone._ “So I’m here… if you’ll allow it.” _Please, for_ once _in your lonely, painful, stubborn life, let me be there for you._

The small horde of spren bubbled across the stone floor. No response. One of the bravest, most self-sacrificing men Adolin knew twisted beneath the weight of raw anguish. Syl’s small form perched on Kaladin’s shoulder, her face scrunched with worry. She idly stroked his head, murmuring inaudible words. For a moment, Adolin cast aside the True Desolation and the necessity of the Radiants’ return — this was the most beautiful, important purpose of the Nahel bond. What would Kaladin have done without her?

He took another tentative step forward. “Kaladin, talk to me. It doesn’t have to be much, I’ll even settle for a word.” He tried to keep his tone light and steady, but failed at forcing a grin to go with it. The concern was bleeding through. “Kaladin?”

His friend’s entire body trembled, the agonyspren swelling from the floor like a wave. “Help,” Kaladin gasped, voice breaking. His shoulders shuddered, followed by an unsubtle, ragged breath that tried and failed to swallow a sob. He ground his palms into his face, fingers clutching at his hair. “ _Please_.”

“Oh, _Kal_.” 

Adolin was on the ground with Kaladin in a heartbeat, sitting at his side with his back to the wall. It wasn’t the same situation, but when Renarin was having a hard time he shied from eye contact even more than usual. Keeping things non-confrontational, allowing for some breathing room in the conversation — those were things Adolin knew how to do. He’d wring what he could from the experience he had, despite feeling woefully unprepared. 

His hand drifted to Kaladin’s back, resting between his shoulder blades. A smidgeon of Alethi propriety, that aversion to intimacy touted as strength, reared its ugly head. He crushed it like he wished he could crush the agonyspren. He hoped the touch was soothing rather than upsetting.

“I’m here, Kal. I’m here.”

Kaladin shook with choked, dry sobs, his face hidden behind his fingers and knees drawn up towards his chest. Syl had flitted to the opposite shoulder when Adolin approached, and only the hem of her flowing dress was visible. 

“I’ve got you,” Adolin murmured, rubbing Kaladin’s back. “You don’t have to talk anymore. I’m not going anywhere.”

They rested in a taut silence, Kaladin shaking while Adolin did his best to anchor him. He let his eyes wander to the walls’ colorful stripes of strata, occupying himself rather than stare. At long last, Kaladin moved, balling his fists and mashing his knuckles into his forehead scars. Adolin winced and debated pulling them away.

“I lose them all. I lose them all, and it’s shredding me.” The words seemed to gnaw their way from Kaladin’s throat, rapid and rattling. “It’s like a shardblade is cutting me a thousand times, only withering little pieces of me. I- I can’t keep doing this.”

“Doing what?” The pause was foreboding, and so he probed, anxious. “Doing what, Kal?”

Kaladin sighed, his eyes glistening. “Caring. Trying to make something, anything last. Thinking that I’m allowed to just…not hurt.” He glanced up at Adolin, then grimaced and turned back to the floor. “The things I love die, and I have to watch. And it’s ruined me.” 

His voice had broken again on that last word, and a frigid ache flooded Adolin’s chest. If only he was his brother, able to inhale Stormlight and will the damage away. There wasn’t an easy cure for this pain though, and that was the most unfair thing in the world.

“I don’t know what you’re going through, Kal. I really, really don’t, and I won’t pretend otherwise. You tend to keep things to yourself — I’ve known you over a year now and I still feel like you’re miles away at times. And that’s fine, absolutely fine. Truly.

“But,” Adolin continued, “you don’t have to bear this alone. No one’s sentenced you to this. You have friends, all of whom care.” 

“They can’t understand,” whispered Kaladin. “They care, but there’s a chasm in the way. Every group I fall in with, I become a leader or a savior. I do it to myself, my storming urge to protect people. Having to prop up the person they look up to, who protects them, would be too much to ask. They can't know I'm crumbling.”

Kelek’s breath. He was…he was right, in a way. Did Kaladin have friends that were just, well, peers? People he hadn’t been a symbol of hope for, or a martyr? Adolin wracked his brain, and the pieces fell into place. It was just himself and Shallan, wasn’t it? 

Storms. 

Storms, storms, storms. 

His arm wrapped around Kaladin and pulled tight. A speedy apology almost followed when Kaladin drew in a sharp breath and tensed, but to Adolin’s relief he relaxed a moment later. The setting sun abandoned the room’s solitary window, leaving them in the inky shadows of evening. A faint glow from a handful of gemstones wafted across the room.

“You’ve got me. I’m your friend, whether you like it or not. The princeling that you’re stuck with.” He smiled, wishing that would warm Kaladin in some small way. “And you’re friends with my wife as well, for that matter. A Radiant, someone who doesn’t need saving. That’s two people immune to the heroics of our favorite broody bridgeboy, right off the top of my head. Isn’t that convenient and wonderful?”

His bridgeboy, blessedly, snorted. Even more blessedly, a pair of agonyspren vanished.

“On that note,” Adolin added, “would you like Syl to fetch Veil, too? Shallan’s having a break right now, but I know she’d take over and come running if you needed her.”

Another yawning silence stretched between them as Kaladin mulled it over. “No,” he muttered, “I’m already wasting your time with this, I won’t waste hers too.”

“Hey now, none of that. I’m here because I wanted to be. Because I’m your friend. My only wasted time was the time spent getting here.”

A deep sigh followed, and Kaladin deflated. “I’m sorry.”

“No apologies, either. For now this room is apology-free, like one of Jasnah’s meetings where the scribes spend hours flinging disguised insults at each other. But, uh, much nicer. You get my meaning.”

“Can I share something with you, Adolin?”

Well _that_ was the last thing he’d ever expected to hear from Kaladin Stormblessed.

“Of course.”

Kaladin pulled away, and turned to face him, still curled up into himself with his arms now around his knees. His dark hair was disheveled, uniform ruffled, eyes red; a mess, frankly, and a grim one at that. Yet a grim mess that was trusting him for once, and that was a treasure worth more than any gemheart. 

“I’ve lost too many people to count. Soldiers, bridgemen, friends. And before them I lost…my brother, Tien.” Adolin’s face tightened. _Oh, no._ Kaladin’s voice grew hoarser as he went on, frayed by grief. “He was conscripted by a petty citylord angry at my father, and I joined Amaram’s army to watch out for him, to protect him. He was thirteen. He died.” The admission was terse, final, begging for no questions. Adolin obliged. 

There were no more sobs from Kaladin. Just quiet, resigned tears. Tears that he shouldn't have to shed.

“All of that has followed me for years. It keeps repeating, and repeating, and repeating. And last year, in Kholinar, it was like something snapped, and it’s all been downhill. You had to pull me out of there, Adolin. I fell apart in Shadesmar. I fell apart at the Oathgate. I couldn’t say the Words that I knew were there waiting for me. I failed all of you. Syl, let me finish. Please.” Kaladin had turned to his shoulder, frowning. Syl was apparently invisible again, trying to comfort him.

“For a year now, I’ve been slowly falling apart. And today, your father relieved me from active duty.”

“That storming man…”

“He’s right though. I can’t hold myself together in combat. I freeze. I'm not making the best decisions. I’m riddled with battle shock, or whatever else is wrong with me.”

Adolin massaged his temples, cursing Dalinar for instigating this, as irrational as that thought was. Like it or not, his father might have been right, if how he'd found Kaladin had been any indication. "So what now, then? Rest?"

“I don’t know. And that’s what’s terrifying." Kaladin wrung his hands, exhausted. More agonyspren had dissipated, but their fatigue-hungry kin had remained. "Everything hurts, and now I can’t cling to the one thing I had left that I excelled at.”

"When you recover, would you want to go back into combat?"

"If I recover. Maybe"

"No, when. You're tough, but more than that, you're smart. Smarter than me, smart as someone who trained to be a surgeon, right? Take the time that's been forced on you, breathe easy for a bit, and for once think about protecting _yourself_ from the things that are hurting _you_. Your problems — I'll be blunt — deserve solutions too, Kal."

"You might be right." Admitting it made Kaladin look like he'd just licked a particularly old, questionable piece of crem. It wasn't a promise, but it was a start. Adolin could live with that for now. 

"I might be, I'm right every few Highstorms or so. Shallan can confirm it." That earned him a laugh, which was nice. "Thank you, though, for telling me what you did. I'm glad you didn't sit here and stew on it, and that you trusted me."

He stood, stretching, then offered a hand to Kaladin and pulled him up. The man was still a touch shaky and unsure, the wariness filtering back into his face. They'd just had a millennium's worth of Stormblessed sharing crammed into a single day, by Adolin's reckoning, and pushing him any further in that regard would risk pushing him away entirely. 

"You're going to hate this suggestion." Adolin grinned when Kaladin scowled. "But I'm of the opinion you shouldn't be alone for the rest of tonight. Could I convince you to clean yourself up and go down to Jez's Duty with me? I'm assuming Veil's already there. I'm not asking you to have a wild time, but I am asking you to come be miserable among your friends. No talking or smiling needed. Just some fresh air and those who care about you." 

Kaladin accepted the invitation with a slow nod. "...that's fine, yeah." He reached out and gave Adolin's arm a gentle squeeze. "Thank you, Adolin, for everything. And you too, Syl, for finding him." She shimmered into view again with a relieved smile, offering Adolin a small wave.

"You're welcome, bridgeboy. Anytime. I'll give you some space and wait in the hall." Adolin left the room and stepped to the side of the doorway, hiding the swirl of joyspren leaves that erupted from the ground at his feet. As he'd left, there hadn't been a single upside down face near the floor.

Not a trace of agony in sight. 


End file.
